Connection pieces of this type are generally known (see for example GB-A-798499 and FR-A-1197581) and have been commercially available in standardized sizes for decades in the same way as screws and nuts have. Here, the standardization relates to the diameter of the wire cable for which such a known connection piece is intended. Generally, these known connection pieces substantially have the shape of a cylindrical pin which is provided in its one end region with a thread and in its other end region with a cylindrical cutout which has the diameter of the wire cable for which the connection piece concerned is intended and is coaxial to the pin axis. To mount the connection piece on the wire cable, the wire cable end is introduced into this cutout and the substantially sleeve-shaped end region of the pin-shaped connection piece, with the wire cable end located therein, is then conventionally made into the shape of a regular hexagon and as a result the wire cable end is securely clamped in the sleeve-shaped end region of the connection piece. So that as a result of static friction between the outer surfaces of the wire cable end and the inner wall of the sleeve-shaped end region of the connection piece the tensile force required for loading the wire cable to capacity can here be transmitted from the connection piece to the wire cable, the static friction surface and thus the length of the sleeve-shaped end region or of the wire cable end located therein has to be made relatively large so that the risk of the wire cable end slipping out of the sleeve-shaped end region of the connection piece under tensile load can reliably be eliminated, since the clamping forces or, to be more precise, clamping pressures exerted on the wire cable end on deformation of the sleeve-shaped end region from its (on the introduction of the wire cable end still) cylindrical sleeve shape to the said hexagonal shape are restricted and therefore a relatively large static friction surface is required because of the restricted clamping pressure.
These known connection pieces have long since proved successful and have generally met the requirements made of them, although a smaller length of their sleeve-shaped end regions would have been perfectly desirable. For certain applications, in particular in application cases in which the wire cable provided with the connection piece has to be drawn through leadthroughs (as for example in the case of a fence formed from a plurality of tensioned wire cables running parallel to one another, in which each wire cable is to be drawn through a respective leadthrough in each of a row of "fence posts"), these known connection pieces have the disadvantage, however, that the diameter of the pin-shaped connection piece has to be at least approximately 20% larger than the diameter of the wire cable so that the tensile load of the wire cable can be transmitted to the pin-shaped connection piece without exceeding the breaking load in the sleeve-shaped end region, since this means that the diameter of the leadthroughs also has to be at least approximately 20% larger than the diameter of the wire cable in order also to be able to pass the connection piece through the leadthroughs. However, this produces the disadvantage that the wire cable is not held in the leadthroughs but can move to and fro transversely with respect to the wire cable axis, which, in the above-mentioned example of a wire cable fence in an extreme case (namely if the wire cables did not touch the leadthroughs), could ultimately result in the "fence posts" provided with the leadthroughs being functionless. The case in which the leadthroughs have to be drilled is further disadvantageous, and also the greater technical complexity for producing the leadthroughs arising from the larger diameter of the leadthroughs, and, last but not least, large leadthroughs for thin wire cables are also undesirable for aesthetic reasons.